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Woods Back In Action

Tiger Woods and his back are set to return at this week’s WGC-Caddilac Championship. (Brandon Connelly)

Tiger Woods showed up at Trump National Doral today, did a ribbon-cutting at the villa dedicated to him on-site with The Donald himself, and then pronounced himself ready to go for the WGC-Cadillac Championship.

So long as his back cooperates.

“I feel better. I feel good,” Woods said in a pre-tournament press conference.

Woods said the back issue that forced him to withdraw during the final round of the Honda Classic “comes and goes,” but therapy and treatment has him feeling good enough to defend the title he won at Doral a year ago.

The back spasms at Honda were similar to those he suffered at the Barclays last summer, Woods said. Woods said he first had a back issue when he was in college at Stanford.

He said he withdrew from Honda when his back tightened up to the point he didn’t feel he could swing the club properly.

With The Masters a month away, Woods said he is paying particular attention to how much he will play and practice to assure he’s ready when he gets to Augusta.

“We’ve got to make sure that we do preventative things to make sure that it doesn’t happen and adjust certain things, whether it’s the swing, lifting, whatever it may be, you have to make certain adjustments,” Woods said. “We’ve done that throughout my entire career and this is no different.”

Woods said he hit a few balls Tuesday but has not made any full swings since Sunday.

He said he will not play a practice round at Doral but intends to walk the course, which has been dramatically redesigned by Gil Hanse since last year. Woods said he and his caddie, Joe LaCava, began mapping out his strategy for the reworked course before his arrival at mid-day.